Horror Movie Franchises - Top 10 Highest Grossing Horror Franchises Horror films have been a part of American (and international) culture since the very beginning of cinema. In the last 40 years alone, we have seen so many new icons of horror; from Freddy to Jigsaw, and Jason to Pinhead. But are these nightmarish juggernauts also the stuff MONEY is made of? We’ll see, as I present to you the top 10 most FINANCIALLY successful (highest-grossing) horror film franchises (Note: Many of these films are 15+ years old, so the amounts of money shown are in 2007-2011 U.S. dollars, and the amounts of money are only the profits of films (not TV shows, video games, etc.); also, there are some spoilers!)

I recently woke up in a haze, drenched in sweat. I was surrounded by Internet nerds and cretins of various sizes and trolling abilities. A strainer stared down at me with cold, dead metal eyes. I tried to scream, but was unable. I tried to move my arms, but they were locked in pixelated handcuffs. I felt anxious and unsteady, unwilling to accept the reality that I was, indeed, trapped in a dungeon of hypertext transfer protocol.

Videos of gaseous cats and Moonies spinning around on escalators danced above my head. They flashed away, only to be replaced by more videos of Simpsons clips and Rebecca Black parodies or whatever else was hip with geeks at the moment. I was haunted by threads of incoherent banter and hyperbolic ad hominem arguments. There was no end to the madness.

Suddenly, a beam of light shone across my face and without warning all of the monsters that decended upon me were vaporized. I cast my eyes around the room, but did not see my savior. I was able to free myself from the shackles and I stood, wobbly but craving to escape. Just then, a figure stepped into the doorway. I was ready to run toward it when it said:

"My name is Dag. Suck my balls. LOLcatz!!1"

I knew the end had come. I grabbed a nearby gun and placed it against my head. I pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. I pulled once more, but nothing happened. I tried a third time and the gun oozed sperm out of the end, then giggled and said:

"Blankfist FTW!!!1"

I screamed and threw it to the ground. It shattered into a thousand pieces, each one a slightly smaller version of the original gun. They laughed in unison:

"You cannot destroy that which was never created! We are everlasting! Have you seen Mateo? WTFBBQ?!"

I was losing grip on reality. Nothing made sense. Everything was lost. Hope was gone. Dreams were crushed. And at my wit's end a whimpering voice cried out from the dark corner. It cried:

You know, I hid my gender for a long time here, because I didn't want to put up with a bunch of asshole men attacking a woman's point of view. I was afraid that if I spoke up from my point of view, I would get trashed.

Since then, it has been a downward spiraling troll fest that, for me, is getting uglier and uglier.

I like the guys that are doing the trolling. I also wish they would stop.

I realize that saying something is likely to set off another round of bashing on folks who come here as a respite from the Norm of the Internet.

I don't think censorship is okay. Please don't get me wrong.

But why this need to punish, guys? It is ugly. I'm not enjoying it.

Is this how people get run off from the Sift?

I have read posts, after the fact, discussing how so-and-so got their "feelings hurt" and left the Sift. Is this how it happens?

My feelings aren't hurt. I just don't want to see promoted on the front page what feels like an unending assault against the sensibilities of women and those who truly care about women.

I know I risk setting the trolls off again. (I hate calling the folks I like trolls.) I want to speak up, though. I don't want to stay silent.

Here's a question -- if these sexist videos (and yes, they are sexist videos) were RACIST videos, would the community allow them to continue? Why is that blatant -- or even sly -- sexism is still okay but racism is not?

Here's another question -- why would people I like continue doing things that they know upset me and others like me? I understand that behavior in the faceless morass that is YouTube or the internet in general, but here? Where we like each other -- mostly?

This is what spoco2 was talking about, I think. The bully boy frat boy tactics that are designed to shame people into silence.

So. For what it's worth, I thought the first episode was very promising. I love the fact that they stuck to the story but embellished it instead of chopping it up. And AMC did a really good job keeping it a zombie flick with gore and all. I can't wait to see the rest. That's my two cents. I'd love to hear some of your impressions.

Update: Midnight on the 25th OK - let's get busy. Anything submitted to the Horrorshow Channel starting now ... is in the running for the Halloween Prize pack.

The all together ooky horror show is running from Monday, the 25th of October to Sunday the 31st. (Halloween). Videos submitted to the HorrorShow channel are in the running to win the ghastly Zombie Prize Pack from the VideoSift Shop.

small print: The winner of this contest is the Sifter who submits the highest voted video in the HorrorShow channel, between Monday the 25th of October and midnight on the 31st of October. In the event of a vote tie, the earliest submitted video will be declared the winner.

On March 23rd the 8 films selected for Horrorfest 4 came out on DVD. I’ve watched all EIGHT of them. I’ll comment briefly on each one. The official site has trailers.

Dread: It’s based on a Clive Barker short story. A man, who watched his parents murdered as a child, becomes involved in a student film project. He sets up a “dread study” to interview college kids about the things they fear most. You might not want to watch this just after eating.

The Final: Tormented high school outsiders arrange a party for their classmates. After drugging them “The Final” begins.

The Graves: Two sisters visit a tourist trap and have to use their wits to stay alive. There’s a mystery about missing tourists. CHEESY!

Hidden: Man returns to his childhood home following the death of his mother. There is a mystery surrounding the drowning of his brother at the waterfall. The photography is pretty.

Kill Theory: A man who cut the rope connected to two friends, in a mountain climbing incident, sets out to test his “kill theory.” He challenges a group of college students, vacationing in the country, to kill off one another leaving just one person alive at 6 a.m. And he warns them not to attempt an escape.

Lake Mungo: This is a ghost story told in documentary style. Parents try to understand what happened to their daughter who drowned. I was getting bored half way through this, but then a mystery about the deceased came to light. The film’s pacing is slow.

The Reeds: A group of teens haunt the reeds. The film has a nightmarish circular story – kind of annoying.

Zombies of Mass Destruction: Terrorists release a zombie virus on the US. This satire picks at homophobia, racism and fundies. CHEESY!

And all of a sudden they show this pink monster being attacked by a room full of kids. As he tries to escape from the kids in drunken stumbles, they pummel and trip him repeatedly. One of the children rips off an eyeball in the process and the dislodged costume helmet spins in 180° turns, horrifying and delighting the children as they are upon him.

Dare I say, it's the funniest thing I've ever seen on AFV. But the moment was very transient! I wanted to watch it again! So I turn to you videosift to help me unearth this mythological video. This was as close as I came to the entirety of the footage (which lasted about 2 minutes or so):

The Zombie Preparedness Initiative is a knowledge base provided by a community of citizens concerned about the impending zombie invasion and the imminent disaster that is sure to follow. We are not claiming to be experts on anything, we are merely doing what we can to gather knowledge and share the acquired information with the public. By doing this, we hope to help people prepare for the very real threat that we shall face when zombies show up and governments have not taken the time to prepare. We are working to do what we can to help people find others in their area that are interested in fighting against the zombies so that when the time comes there can be safe locations all around the world. We have recently moved to a new content management system, so if there are any problems with anything, please report it to the Site Admin.

At the Zombie Preparedness Initiative, we have a number of online items that can help you to communicate about surviving the zombie apocalypse. We have a full featured forum that you can visit where people can discuss ideas they have or ask questions of others about things they were wondering about. We have a number of articles and various special features, arranged by category, which you can view by clicking the categories up above to view the articles or features in each category. Some of the features include a group listing, where people can create groups and choose a "fallout" location to go to in case of a zombie invasion and some fiction that our members have written which can be viewed by going to the Community tab.

"An Iranian blogger (whose URL I will not publish) live blogging from Baharestan Square in central Tehran today captures but brief glimpses of the unimaginable horror that took place today. Bus loads of protesters were stopped and unloaded from their buses by "black-clad police" and literally herded. When the massing was sufficient, as the barely controllably distraught Tehran caller to CNN described first hand, hundreds of the regime's Basij thugs poured out of an adjoining mosque and commenced a massacre with axes, clubs, guns and gas."

Twitter: "we must go - dont know when we can get internet - they take 1 of us, they will torture and get names - now we must move fast"

"A young woman who was standing aside with her father watching the protests was shot by a basij member hiding on the rooftop of a civilian house. He had clear shot at the girl and could not miss her. However, he aimed straight her heart. I am a doctor, so I rushed to try to save her. But the impact of the gunshot was so fierce that the bullet had blasted inside the victim's chest, and she died in less than 2 minutes. The protests were going on about 1 kilometers away in the main street and some of the protesting crowd were running from tear gass used among them, towards Salehi St. The film is shot by my friend who was standing beside me. Please let the world know."

"Iran's revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face

Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call.

Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda", her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles."